Episode 148: Getting to the Actual Passion of Donors' Hopes and Desires

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall" your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett. It's an honor to have you back here for another edition of "Around with Randall."

I want to bring together two interesting parallel stories that I ran into in the last week or 10 days that really get to the heart of the idea of relationship building and the problems and challenges that we have in our industry. The first is a client who is going through kind of a culture change around the issues and challenges about how to build relationships with their prospects and donors and more prospects in some cases than donors, although in the donor case it's about elevating some of those gift potentials. There's a lot of discussion that we have around this concept of passion, and I don't mean the passion of the organization, or the fundraisers, or the projects that they're working on, but what's the passion of the donors. If we want to maximize the opportunity then the conversation becomes one of what are the people that are wanting possibly to give the money passionate about. That's been an interesting cultural probably going to be a multi-year process to get them where they need to be.

Totally separate, I have another client where all I do is interview their best possible largest gift potential seven, High seven, eight figure, nine figure at least thought processed opportunities. I'm not even sure none of them are at that gift level yet. They're trying to figure out how to elevate those conversations, and in the discussion I had with one of them was an interesting dialogue around the fact that they give to something specific. They have very specific thoughts as to what their philanthropist should go to and it's very significant, large philanthropy, beyond significant, and the fact that there is a frustration on their part that a lot of organizations keep coming to them and are telling them what they need but not what they're actually asking. They're never getting the point of what they want to give to and they keep bringing proposals and they keep saying to all these different nonprofits no. And in the conversation I had with them it was very, and maybe just because I've done this for a long time we were able to, I was able to figure out exactly, what they gave to. And at the end of the call he said, we were on the phone for a good hour and 15, 20 minutes, the individuals said you got more out of me about what we need to make a gift possible than most people do in several years. And I said because I kept asking you about what you wanted not what I needed because I don't need anything. I'm just trying to figure out how to move the needle on philanthropy and it was a very joyous, happy discussion, I think for both of us.

We have become this concept of so driven towards getting a gift that we are missing all of the opportunities that come to elevate the gift conversation around passion, desire. What is it that the donor or prospect want to get to. What is it that they desire, and then the question is, how does that fit with us in our mission if at all. For the rest of this conversation that we're having I want to talk about the four biggest challenges that come, and by the way I'm going to break apart what you should do in each one of these challenges, two that are encumbering us from elevating philanthropy to needed levels, and in health care, and education, and Social Service it's becoming more and more needed.

So what are these? So the first one that I'll break apart is that it's my opinion we've become too focused on what I might classify as internal stakeholders. The internal group of leadership, and you might define that as staff, you might also include it as key maybe governance, leadership, like even board members, but it's not a very wide group of people, they're driving the conversation. We need this and that, then moves into philanthropy in the way of articulating go get money for this. And depending on what this is, money may not be available. It's about and we'll get to this here in a few moments, about things that the community doesn't want to fund or doesn't understand why they should fund it. There's also a time element here that we we get pressure and philanthropy to move quickly to make sure we're driving revenue in the door for the needs but we've not set up the process at all.

Part of the book that I wrote, Vibrant Vulnerability, talks about the integration of strategic planning. Actually I'll say it the other way. The philanthropy is being introduced into strategic planning, and it's done at the beginning, not in the middle, not at the end. And too many times in the last 60 days I've had Chief development, Chief philanthropy officers literally say to me or look at me through zoom and say I went into a meeting and they said we need to find $2M for X. I've never heard of X being a priority. It's never been discussed. And then they find out well yeah it's been discussed but they weren't in the meetings when it was discussed.

There's an old adage, and I always say my favorite quote at the end of the podcast, this is kind of my most tactical favorite quote or favorite way of looking at at life in the world of philanthropy. If you ask somebody for money you'll get advice. If you ask for them for their advice, you'll get their money.

We have become so driven by the thought that the internal leadership has all the answers. Do they? Possibly. They could. But if you don't allow other people to feel as if they can buy in to, be a part of the solution, particularly if it's their money, what are the chances of you getting the money. And so what I'm advocating for and you're if you're listening to this and you're living in these scenario situation you're like well great you've just told me exactly what I already know. It's your job to push in on your CEOs, on your c-suite, and say you can't leave me out of these conversations because I am the conduit to the community and you're going to need the community's money. It doesn't mean I know everything. Doesn't mean I'm the most important. But I can be an advocate and a resource for you. If necessary, get them my darn book and say please read it and understand, I'm not trying to insult you, but the book I wrote is not meant for us. It's meant for them, for the c-suite like, look, or the administrative team, or the executive leadership. You are not allowing us to be a part of this process and it's not only hurting you, it's hurting us and it's hurting our community. So the first thing is we become too insular in our internal stakeholders having all the answers.

Number two is we have become preoccupied with results instead of process. This one is to me the most painful because I'm such a process-oriented person. Whether it's how I get ready for work every day to the way in which I build out the different services I provide for my clients, I'm not interested in the results as I am the process to get there. The results take care of themselves. Let me give you some examples of how results are really driving really bad decisions, or the ability for us to actually have more meaningful relationships. This, I'm all for metrics. I preach it. But if all you live by is how much money you raise and you don't include the thought process of pledges and planned giving and things of that nature all you're doing is creating transactional moments that are going to drive gift officers to look for gifts that are the now, the short, the simple, the easy. And by the way there are those gifts available and this goes back to number one. If you're looking for someone who could give $5M to make a gift and you just show up and you kind of do the dance, you might get $10,000. We failed to ask the question, how much money did we leave on the table. Goals and metrics should be in place, and I'm all for them. And I know we are an ROI-driven process. I'm not running from any of that. But what I am saying is, we need to talk about the retention of donors and did we max. How much of the opportunity did we maximize?

Number two is that because of the financial conditions of this is within this idea of results that we live within in our financial world the money's needed now more than ever. I've got so many clients you're probably experienced where this, the organization, the system, the health, the higher ed unit is saying we need the money right now. And they're almost willing to take the $50,000 over the $5M, $50,000 in cash over $5M estate gift because they need the money today. It's not philanthropy's job, in my opinion, to make the organization function in a positive financial manner without other parts of the equation being involved, which we're going to get to in a moment. And if we're sacrificing speed for large asks we're just hurting our organizations in the long run. How do you bite that? I'm gonna talk about that in a moment, and how you can get your leaders to better understand what we go through every day. A part of that means money now is, and and I don't hear quite as much but I do hear it every once in a while, but we need unrestricted dollars. Look, what Mackenzie Scott is doing is earth shattering and changing so kind of the landscape of philanthropy. And the fact that you can't hear her, talk to her, she, don't hear from her you don't know God bless the woman. I think it's just awesome. But her unrestricted gifts as at least up to this point are not what we see normally throughout the nonprofit world. Most of the time people want to know what they're giving to, particularly the larger gift numbers. What's the value proposition? So it's unrestricted piece. The other thing that we forget, and this kind of connects one into this idea of internal stakers holding too much as well as the idea that order two interesting results is that we're not aligned with Community need.

I, as you all know, live in Omaha and for years and years and somebody that I have an immense amount of respect for keep names out of it because it's not that important, totally when I came back to Omaha in 2008 or nine to take over philanthropy at the medical center told me that the biggest frustration that the philanthropy Community has is that there are four, five, six, ten different organizations coming to them for the same things. And they're looking at this saying why would we do this four, five, six times? We should do it once and you all should work together. Meaning that the organizations aren't listening to the community leaders who have the resources. They're driving the success philanthropically. Other times we are in a situation where the community is saying we need Acts but the non-profit piece of the non-profit world or a portion or maybe it's your organization says well that's great but we're trying to do. Why that's a problem? It's the ability for the organization to listen to these leaders and better understand what they want and what they think back to that investment piece. All of this comes down to the fact that when you look at all of these, whether it's transactional, whether it's we need the money now or maybe unrestricted dollars, or that we're not aligned with Community need, is that we are not building mutually beneficial relationships. We're so transactional that there is no relationship.

During the conversation I mentioned at the top of the podcast, at least one of them where I'm interviewing these, you know, opportunity philanthropic opportunities in the eight, nine figures for a client, he told the story of a leader within a larger organization would just come to see the family for two or three years and never ask them for anything. There was a relationship. And this leader would ask a bunch of questions. What are your interests? What do you give to? Oh, well we might do something like that. And then they went back and came, kind of thought about it, and came back said well we're going to pilot this and is, can I bring you more information later on. And they pilot it and show the results and said we could stand this up and scale but we need a major, eight or nine figure gift to make it possible, and it will change the way this kind of part of the world works. They got the gift three, four years in the making. Billy never asked him for anything of import except for advice and thoughts. That's a relationship.

Another client of mine that we're doing some campaign work on, really, he's done a fabulous job over three or four years of doing the same. Are you interested in this? Are you interested in that? Tell me more about this. And they're about ready to pop the question on the largest gift the organization has ever seen by leaps and bounds. Eight figures. Probably major and I give them a lot of credit. Certainly have been in the background, you know, saying certain things. But they get the credit because they built a relationship. They trust them. This reminds me of what my father always taught me about valuing a girlfriend at the time, now most importantly my wife. If all I do is show up when I need something I might get it once or twice, but eventually it becomes a one-way relationship and that's not going to last long.

The idea is that you put more into the relationship than you get out of it to build that kind of rapport and trust. So maybe Randall's advice for the day, tactical, not just about playing three but your own relationships something good for me to remember as well. We're preoccupied with results.

Number three is we never really wanted public engagement in the first place. This goes back in connection to number one about the internal stakeholders is that we, in the idea of feasibility studies, are testing certain things and what I've learned about feasibility studies that I don't like is we're testing. This is what we want. What do you think? And what I do in my feasibility says that I say not only is this is what they're thinking, is this of interest. What do you think is the most important thing? They go well, nobody ever asks that. A statin for the most part. I'm asking. I'd like to know, because I'm trying to figure out on behalf of the client is there a connection here. Is there a different way of connecting the dots. The only way you know that is you actually ask them.

So the Tactical piece of this problem is frankly to let some of our leaders get bludgeoned a little bit because I don't think they understand this in many cases. There are a couple times in my career where the leader that, as a head fundraiser, and I had a boss wanted to do this and I kept saying this is no work. And two different organizations, two different scenarios, two different needs, and in both cases I put them in front of a couple of donors and I let them get bludgeoned. And literally these people very politely but said very firmly you're not listening to me and it's my money. And it was in both cases where there was this enormous shift to where the CEO leader would look at me and go, I should probably listen to you more because that's what you said. I'm like, I'm here to set you up for success but you wanted to do this and I tried to tell you not to. aAnd I'm not blaming anyone but I'm here to help you. My job is to make you look good, not to put you in situations that are bad. So if we don't actually have people internally that are willing to listen to the outside world what the community wants with philanthropist one leaders want then what we end up with is a disconnect in alignment with our community. And the way to get to that is to have sometimes a little bit uncomfortable conversation where you're not the bad guy. Somebody else can be. And say hey and sometimes you have to help the CEO by saying you may not like what you hear. I don't let people walk into bad scenarios, but it it's a good moment for them to learn.

The last thing is maybe the easiest, is sometimes donors aren't invested in your particular need or cause. You don't have to cause celeb in the community or they don't understand the value and that's sometimes tough to admit. And we keep running into that wall. This is why I advocate having lots of funding opportunities so that when we run into someone who says I don't do capital that there's an endowment or a programmatic piece. It's a part of that campaign so that we can position them to give to it, and or they're not interested. Let's say you're doing something in children's and they don't give to kids. Well we do other things as well. Could we talk about those, even though it's not the priority. And what I tell CFOs all the time who don't like this. I want the money for what we need it for. My comment is money's fungible, meaning it can be moved around in the background. If we have someone that will give us a million dollars for this and we're doing a anyway then take the million dollars and let's take that million and move it to something we can't fund, like parking lots or something that the communities has no interest in.

Money being fungible in the background is highly advantageous. It gives you more things you can fundraise for too. When you ask the question of the donor, what's your passion, what are you interested in. We do that. It wasn't a priority. Still I'm going to bring up the things that are priority. They're not fits I want to get to where that passion is to maximize that transformational gift. That comes with a great deal of communication and partnership with your CEO and your CFO and helping them understand this fungibility concept, that behind scenes we can do an awful lot but we can maximize bigger gifts if we do it in the right way. All of this comes back to the simple concept. As I conclude, you have to be willing to listen to what the passion and the connection of the donors interests are. That's how you elevate gifts. Do that first and then figure out how it fits into what your organization does, not the other way around where you say look this is what we need and you should fund us. We're doing too much of that and what's happening is we're seeing less philanthropy. Those that do it will prosper, I promise.

Don't forget check out the blogs at hallettphilanthropy.com, and if you'd like to get a hold of me podcast@Hallettphilanthropy.com. We're in these interesting times. I, it's, whether it's financial challenges or kind of where we are politically, lots of consternation. Philanthropy is playing a really critical role. There's a lot of needs in our communities. You're a part of that. You're making a difference. Don't forget my favorite all-time thing, some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. You are someone who's making something happen for the things and the people in your community, the things you believe in, that are wondering what happened. And I don't know better way to spend a career that you're making a difference for those in need. I look forward to seeing you next time right back here on another Edition of "Around with Randall." Don't forget, make it a great day.